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In the new world of floorball, the riskiest thing you can do is to do the same things in the same way as you have always been doing, few things are as foolish as hoping old behaviors, will give you new results.

Committing yourself to be a master in what you do, is the new standard for success and great results. Be so good that people can not ignore to see you. Nothing less than my very best in every moment!

“I intend to give my best, to improve things and to create the football team in relation to my image and my football philosophy.” /José Mourinho

Aim for to be the best in world and ask your self, what the best in your discipline, leadership would do now? What is he/she doing right this moment? Probably reading this floorball blog ; )

Belief is nothing more than thoughts that have been repeated over and over again, until we have made them our own reality. Our believe and thoughts will be a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Have you heard about the Pareto 20/80 rule? 80% of your floorball results come from 20% of your activities, drills, practices etc. meaning a limited amount of activities will give you already 80% of the results!
What are your leadership cornerstones or vision? What about your floorball players key, or basic activities that will give you the 80% of results?
Find and visualize those important floorball activities, drills and practices that generates the majority of your results and get really good in doing those few things! Getting your basic box (framework) in place, it’s easier to do things outside the box. Master what’s inside the framework, that will give you the 80% of the results.

“The way I use to develop an aerobic condition is three against three, man to man, in a square 20 metres by 20.”

José Mourinho 36 football drills

If you search “Mourinho 36 drills” on Google you can find a lot of topics discussing that José Mourinho uses 36 basic practices or drills. You will probably not find them, at least I haven’t, but this might give some advice that he is working with the 20/80 rule? These are some things that you can read about Mourinhos 36 football drills.

Combined floorball drills

The 36 football drills are simple or basic if you prefer that word, the practices are mainly designed to work with techniques and skills. During the practices and the drills the players work with fitness, tactical, technical factors at the same time with a high number of ball touches. Mourinho has also included the psychological and mental factors into the drills, meaning he is also working with the psychological part in football simultaneously.

Stress affects floorball performance

The figure above is showing the performance of two equal floorball players (capacity, when they are at their best), the difference is on their stress levels. A players optimal performance might be in the beginning, middle or at the end.

The first line/player will perform well or at his/her best with lower demands and stress level, while player two needs and can play at his/her best with high demands and expectations.
Do you know these curves for your players? Who will perform well in critical situations and who will be at their best with low expectations? These curves are just two examples, you would probably have as many different lines as you have players.

Each floorball game is a practice game, until you earn your living on playing floorball. That’s a quite good attitude to have, to keep the right perspective on things and situations, to try to keep the stress level on an acceptable level.

So far, I have been talking about Steiner’s model in the teamwork part, but of course there are other models that can help you understand your floorball team behavior and development. Below you find a summary of Tuckman & Jensen 1977, team development model.

Forming – The floorball team members get to know each other and start to identify the task/challenge they are facing and how they should solve it. This is a very exciting phase for each member, although they might have spent one or more seasons together, but when you add or trade/add/remove players or change the task for the team, you will start from the beginning by forming.

Storming – Now the “honeymoon” is over and you will probably or most likely face conflicts and tensions in your floorball team, between the players and sometimes between you and a player (or this will be hidden under the surface). The conflicts can be about roles in the team, behavior, tactics etc. If the conflicts are not handled some teams will not take the next step and be stuck in storming phase.

Norming – The floorball players start to find their places and roles within the team. Roles and norms start to be established and clear for everyone, regarding both the task and social intercourse. Goals are getting clearer and clearer and the co-operation is strengthened within the team.

Performing – Now the floorball team is ready, relations, roles, goals and norms are clear for everyone and accepted. The focus is now the first steps towards the common goal on short and long term, by beating other teams.

Adjourning – The season is over and the motivation is lower than before and the relationship between the floorball players might not be that important anymore, the focus starts to shift to holidays and next season.

Repetition is a powerful teaching method and tool, remember the 10 000 hours of practice or the Pareto 20/80 rule (coming later). Through repetition, a new idea will be integrated as a normal thing, even if it from the beginning was innovative or new. The same goes for floorball practices and drills, repeat, repeat and your floorball players will integrate what you have been practicing on, to the game. We often need to be reminded, rather than instructed?

Messi, Eto’o and Ronaldo feints

You can see those incredible feints done by Messi, Eto’o, Ronaldo and others, and we are amazed, how did he come up with that or how was he able to do that? The answer is simple, through repetition and hours of practice, to automatize the moves.

Social facilitation

An aspect to consider when you are introducing a new floorball skill drill, is theopposite of social loafing, social facilitation, it means that we will perform better when we have people around us watching, but there is a but, it’s only easier tasks or well-known activities that is will apply on. When you are learning or practicing a new floorball skill you don’t want a lot of people or team members watching you, it will only make you nervous, stressed and insecure.
So when you practice a new moment, you might split up your floorball team in small groups to lower the physical and psychological arousal level and therefore get a better learning environment. When your players are more familiar with the new floorball drill/technical moment you can start to do the practice in bigger groups in order to raise the arousal level to be more like a game situation.

David Beckham, free kicks

A young David Beckham was practicing free kick after free kick “alone” in the nearest park. Since he was alone, he could practice with a low arousal level, automize and learn the correct technique. If you add visualization to this practice you have a powerfull tool for the future.

He was lucky?

He was so lucky or their team had more luck than us. Have you heard these words? This at least something you might hear many times, when people are successful, but the people saying those words, don’t know what’s behind the luck, hard work and commitment, the more you practice “the luckier” you get.
Look at Mourinho is he lucky or is it luck? For me it’s quite obvious it’s thousands of hours of hard work, learning, studying and practice. Success doesn’t just happen because the stars line up in your team, it’s created. Look once again on the leadership model, can this be your formula for “luck”?

“Is it because we have been lucky? Of course not. It’s about anything else but lucky when you’re talking about my players. “ /José Mourinho

10 000 Hours – 10 years

A number of studies have shown that it will take ten thousands of hours to become a master of what you are doing. This will apply for leadership, professional floorball players, football, work, hobbies etc. Each of us has the potential to master what we are doing, but it will require time, 10000 hours, or about ten years, you need to focus your energy, if you want to be the best in whatever you do. But too many of us don’t commit to the things we are doing well enough, but we still hope to be the best or recognized, sometimes we give up too early, wondering why we never become the best. “I was a great talent, when I was young…” Ever heard that?

Talent or a lot of practice?

Talent is a word we use to simplify the explanation of success and the difference between the best and the normal people or floorball players. We also assume that elite floorball, hockey or football is only for the people with right heritage and genes and unfortunately we were not one of those… that’s why we are leaders or waterboys ; )
What if it wasn’t like that, and it could be seen only as an opinion that hinders us from being the best? What if our success is only connected to the amount of hours we practice?

For example, many floorball and football coaches talk about that they are able to spot talents, is that true? Or are they good at spotting players that already have been practicing more than the others?

You can have gifted parents, but it’s probably more realistic that the parents have put more efforts already from the beginning in to the practicing?

Tiger Woods, a golf talent, or is it a result of practice?

Tiger Woods has been seen as the greatest talent in golf, ever. In that case you need to know that Tiger Woods got his first golf set before he was one years old. He had been through his first full golf round at the age of two years. When he was five he had already practiced more than an average golfer will practice during his or her whole “career”. The same goes for Messi, Beckham and the other football stars. David Beckham used to practice in a little park, and he practiced for hours and hours every day.

“With hard work everything is possible, everyone can dream, and what you dream of you can reach, if you are willing to work for it” /Lionel Messi

When José Mourinho arrived in Madrid he commented Christiano Ronaldo, “He works incredibly hard, it’s impressing to see a player of his caliber to practice harder than nobody else”

If you map the hours the star football players put on practicing, it would not be a surprise, why they are where they are.

“Practicing is my secret, I have always believed in, if you want to be successful you need to work for it, practice, practice and then practice more”. / David Beckham

I’m not sure how many hours of practice, I can give you by reading this blog, but at least some valuable time and leadership knowledge, I hope.

So, what happens to you if despite all of your planning and following of these rules, injury still strikes? Well, make sure your floorball player gets proper medical attention for sure, and never put an injured floorball player back in the game just because he says that he’s healthy… highly motivated floorball players want to play every floorball game.

Trust in the rest of your floorball team to fill the spot. After all, if you’ve followed the above plan all year long, your floorball team will be well conditioned, warmed-up, and will have had plenty of playing time to prepare for this moment. Slap them on the back and tell them to “go give it their all!”

Off-season practice to floorball. The floorball off season jumping drill is started in a low position with one foot in front of the other, then a jump up and you switch the position of your feets, but land as in the starting position.

Floorball off-season practice and drill performed in pairs (1-1). The floorball off season drill is performed shoulder against shoulder and the players try to get over to the other players side while slowly moving forward. This is an effective off season practice building up strength in legs to use in games during tight situations in floorball games.

If you assume that the floorball teams on certain level practice the same amount of practices each week, lets say four times, and you want to outcompete your opponents, you can choose to increase the amount of floorball practices or work on improving the quality of your floorball practices and drills, in order to “run away” from the other teams.
Let’s have an theoretical example, 4 (floorball practices) x 31 (weeks, length of the season) = 124 floorball practices during a season. Each practice contains 5 floorball drills, 5 X 124= 620 drills. Each floorball drill is repeated 5 times per player during the floorball practice, 5 X 620=3100 repetitions.

Instead of increasing the amount of floorball practices you could set up a goal that each player will run 3 meters extra every floorball drill, this would mean 3100 drills X 3 meters X 20 players = 186000 meters. Your team would with this small improvement run 186 kilometers extra during the floorball season, the result should be visible in the end of the games or at the end of the season, you would have physically and psychologically strong floorball players, they will take the extra steps needed for success. Instead of running, you could let your floorball players practice a feint while waiting. 10000 repetitions will automatize the move, 10000 hours will make you master of it!

The power of small steps

You can of course use the same principle for improvements in general or your work towards common goals. Let’s say you can do 3 small improvement steps each day, after a month you have 90 small improvement steps and after 6 months 540. If you can make each floorball player in your team to take these small improvement steps you will have 540 X 20 players = 10800 small improvements in your floorball team.